Say goodbye to you dumb old shoes soon as Apple has got a patent for chip-equipped smart shoes.
Apple has just filed for an entire portfolio of patents that is apparently going to cover what they are hoping to bring to us in the near future called, the Smart Shoe. The whole point of the Smart Shoe is that it’s going to tell you when it is time to replace your shoes. It’s going to have sensors and processors and apparently it’s going to connect to your smart devices and give you all sorts of information about your body; how many steps you’ve taken, how many calories you’ve burned, and how much distanced you’ve traveled.
The patent is titled as “Shoe wear-out sensor, body-bar sensing system, unit less activity assessment and associated methods.” A copy of the patent application can be found here. This patent was actually filed back in July, 2012 but was only approved today. Of course this is nothing more than a patent, so who knows if Apple will actually make the shoe and release it out in the market.
The Smart Shoe is mainly composed of three electronic components; a sensor that will detect when the sole of you shoe is worn out, a processor that will process and calculate data, and an alarm that will notify you when the shoe needs to be replaced. Apple is planning to embed the processor and other electronic devices on the heel of the shoe and will be powered by an internal battery. The sensors would be scattered across various points on the shoe specifically, the points that tend to wear out easily. The alarm would notify the user by utilizing a batch of Light Emitting Diodes (LED lights) or would send data through a wireless transmitter to an external display unit i.e. Smartphone or Smart TV.
This is not the first that Apple filed for a patent related to shoes or clothing i.e. The Smart Garment, for more information read a copy of their patent here. This particular clothing would talk and inform the wearer through their iPhone about their workouts and create tailored workouts that would best fit him/her. Apple seems to be seeking out devices that can work with their existing ones rather than creating new devices that would replace the existing ones.
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